Paulingite
by Caitlin Start
Summary: A corrupted gem is found in the Beta Kindergarten with unusually high strength. The Crystal Gems quickly find out that this gem is different from others they have come across.


Preface

This story takes place directly after Kindergarten Kid (mere seconds after the episode ends while the group is still in the Beta Kindergarten). I am using this to impress that I do not consider this even headcanon, but am simply using this as a way my gemsona's story could unfold if she were to meet the Crystal Gems. I would do this in comic form as that is more popular, but my talent is in writing and not in repeatedly drawing the same people in the same way. As an additional note, I am writing this a lot later than I was planning, so with new information this should not bridge from canonical knowledge too much, but should I delve into the realm of theory and whatever theory I use is proven wrong, I will maintain the theory within this story for continuity. Well though through critiques are greatly appreciated as this is the first time I will be showing any of my writing to anyone except family and friends. Thank you and enjoy!

Chapter 1

After the bubbled gem had been sent off, the group was silent for a moment before Garnet commented, "Let's check the Kindergarten one last time to make certain we didn't miss anything."

Pearl nodded, hands loosely on her hips. "We should split up to cover more ground. If you see any monsters, get everyone before engaging, ok?" She looked pointedly at Amethyst.

"Ugh! Ok, Pearl. Will do," agreed the purple-hued gem begrudgingly.

The group began to disperse and Peridot quickly threw up her arms with a shout of "Wait!" After checking that she had garnered the others' attention, she stood back up straight and cleared her throat before continuing. "For practical reasons, we need a meeting time and place for if we find nothing."

"Good catch, Peridot," Steven said with a thumb's up.

"Yup." This was Garnet. "Warp pad; sundown. Fine with everyone?" The gems were in the middle of nodding in agreement when the canyon was penetrated by the echoes of a far off roar. They all looked around in shock and confusion; the reverberating cacophony of the roar off the hard walls made it impossible to determine which of the many branches of the canyon the sound had come through.

"It could have just been a mountain lion," Steven said with a strained smile, trying to lighten the quickly darkening mood.

"Impossible," Pearl replied with a dismissive wave, nipping the idea in the bud, "mountain lions sound nothing like that and I doubt they can be heard from so far off so clearly even with the aid of an echo."

"Yeah, something's out there… Hey! Bet I'll find it first!" Amethyst declared, running off before even finishing.

Steven dashed after her. "No fair! That's a head start!" Peridot was soon to follow, her own face showing her displeasure Amethyst's lead. The two remaining gems sighed in exasperation, Pearl fluttering her fingers over her temples, and set off in the opposite direction, splitting from each other at the first branch in the long dried water course.

As it turned out, Amethyst was indeed the first to spot it and she rushed to collect the others. While they were running, Pearl couldn't help commenting after a while, "My, Amethyst, I've never seen you this excited to get help before."

Her tone was light and obviously meant as a joke, but internally she thought that perhaps Amethyst was starting to get used to following orders after all. That was until Amethyst replied in a dead serious way, "It's huge: Malachite huge."

Peridot and Pearl slid to an abrupt halt. "What!" they exclaimed in unison.

Amethyst turned, running backwards. "You heard me! Let's get moving; this is going to be a group effort."

"Best case," added Garnet as Pearl and Peridot caught back up with the others.

"Yeah, yeah. We'll make it "best case," don't worry, Garnet," Amethyst griped. "Stop being a pessimist." Garnet's only reply to this was a grimace. They slid around one last corner and there it was. Amethyst hadn't been kidding in the least. The corrupted gem was shorter than Malachite by a head or so, but made up for it in length. Its body was a good half again longer than Malachite's, not including the tail.

The Crystal Gems scrambled behind cover before they were noticed. Leaning out from their hiding spot, they took a closer look at what they were facing. The gem was consistent of browns, yellows, and whites with a cuboid gem set in a deep crevice on its left shoulder with rough skin inside the indentation that made the positioniong of the gemstone look like a cracked open geode. The tail was a good twice and a half to three times the length of the body, covered in armor-like plates, and tipped with wicked spikes on the end, and as it swung around it came off looking like some sort of flail. Thick legs that seemed able to bend every which way as it walked around were ended in sickle-like claws. It had a mane flowing from the top of its head around either side of its neck. The face was set in a constant cross between annoyance, anger, and hate thanks to its jagged jaw, vicious teeth, and bumped ridge above its eyes. The eyes themselves didn't have pupils or irises which gave it the uncomfortable ability to not have others determine where it was looking. Horns protruded from its snout, jaw, and temples. Its whole body, besides its mane, also seemed to be consistent of straight lines, giving it an overall stretched and out-of-proportion appearance, or at least to a much greater extent than the other corrupted gems that Steven had seen before.

The group leaned back into their cover, not wanting to risk getting seen by the pupil-lacking gem before they had finished a proper plan. All of them were grim as Garnet asked Amethyst and Pearl, "Alexandrite?"

Pearl nodded, "Agreed. Steven, Peridot, stay here."

Steven gawked. "What? Why?"

Garnet replied for Pearl. "We don't know what would happen to you if you were in a position where the rest of us would get poofed. Peridot is unready for this sort of fight." Steven crossed his arms moping, but sat down anyways. The three older gems dashed into the open and Steven caught the flash of fusion light before he could lean back out to watch. He heard Peridot mutter, "I can't watch this. They're doomed," but focused on the battle that was about to begin. Whether they liked it or not, he'd be there with his shield and bubble if they needed him.

The monster noticed the larger gem much quicker than it could for the small gems that composed the fusion and roared at her, revealing an intertwined hiss-like sound that came along with the roar that had been lost in the distance and the echo before. As Alexandrite pulled out her weapons, the monster's tail shot forward with such speed that the larger gem barely had time to bring up her spear in a sword-like parry to block the incoming spikes, but couldn't stop its momentum as the end of the tail continued, wrapping around the spear and wrenching it from Alexandrite's grip and tossing it over the canyon wall and into the far distance with much more strength than the spindly appendage would have suggested. Alexandrite quickly pulled out a second whip and went on the offensive, carefully staying in front of it, and more importantly out of reach of the monster's tail. This continued for a while, the monster accepting the sting of the whips with displeasure, but not much else to show. The two circled each other for a while in this stalemate, Alexandrite not wanting to advance into the tail's range and the corrupted gem not seeming to know what to do without using its tail, but just as suddenly this ballet of wits ended as the creature lunged forward, the horn on its snout pointed directly at Alexandrite's abdomen. Alexandrite grinned, seeing her opportunity and jumping straight upward and dropping one of the whips and pulling a spear from her forehead, bringing it up for a final strike downward on the monster as it passed beneath her. And just like that the battle was over.

As Alexandrite focused on her intended strike, the monster's tail flicked up delicately and collided with the spot on Alexandrite's abdomen it had been originally aiming for. With a flash, four humanoid shapes split apart and plummeted to the ground with a soft thud. The corrupted gem nimbly turned its momentum on one of its feet and pounced on three of the four figures, leaving Sapphire be. It all happened too fast for Steven to react to; there had only been a single instant between Alexandrite's guaranteed victory and her literal downfall. Steven was about to come out of cover to try something, to try anything to help his friends when Sapphire seemed to recover from the initial shock and got up, patting off a layer of dust and moving to be in front of the now immensely larger gem. The corrupted gem crouched down to meet Sapphire's gaze in a near dutiful manner, careful to keep the other three gems trapped, two of which were heavily voicing their annoyance at the situation and one of those two was beginning to smoke.

After a moment of deliberation with herself, likely weighing the future's options, Sapphire spoke. "Please let those gems go. They are my underlings and should you keep them restrained, I will be forced to report you for disobeying a noble's direct order." The monster growled its displeasure, but lifted its legs as instructed, briefly balancing on a single limb as it flicked the three other gems past and well behind Sapphire. The three gems recovered and regained the footing before regarding the corrupted gem warily. Ruby began to move forward to join back up with Sapphire, but a growl from the corrupted gem and a dismissive wave from Sapphire sent her back, more likely from the wave than any amount of fear of the huge gem. Once this was settled, Sapphire said, "I have two more friends around the corner. May they come out?" After a moment of complete stillness, the gem gave a begrudging nod, seeming to finally notice the little bit of Steven showing from around the corner as he watched. He grabbed Peridot who, true to her word, wasn't watching, and went to stand with Amethyst, Pearl, and Ruby. The unknown gem gazed at them for a moment before letting out a huff and relaxing ever so slightly.

Steven whispered to Sapphire, "What type of gem is this?"

Sapphire didn't turn to look at them as she replied. "I have no idea." The weight of that simple statement hit the rest of the group. Sapphire wasn't relying on her future vision to navigate this encounter which likely meant, something was blocking it from working on this new gem; she was guessing as much as they would be. After another moment of thoughtful silence, Sapphire asked, "Why are you here?" The other gem didn't move for a long time more. The eventual movement seemed forced and unwanted, but it answered anyways. It scratched a simple shape into the ground: a square on its point with an "X" through; a crude but very recognizable depiction of the old Diamond Authority symbol.

Sapphire nodded, keeping her normal air of quiet calm. It wasn't surprising that the Diamonds had sent the monster; the more surprising part was the way it responded and the thought process the corrupted gem needed to have to answer with such clarity. Sapphire continued with a musing statement. "The Diamonds sent you here to fight." Sapphire paused and with no objection to the statement, she moved on with more confidence. "Whatever gem you are, I am the only one here of a higher rank and that is why you are obeying me." She started the first syllable of a new statement but was cut off by a quick and decisive growl from the other gem. The following statement had been false? Sapphire showed a slight hint of confusion as her lips pursed a hair in consideration, but she seemed unable to come up with another option than the one she had posed and decided to move on instead.

"When did you come here?" The monster swiped through the depiction of the Diamond Authority and replaced it with concentric, circular waves. "The corrupting light?" Sapphire asked before the others could work out what the simple picture could mean. A soft growl came in reply: close, but not quite right. It added a vertical line to the picture, almost touching the waves and to the right relative to the group of gems. "Directly after?" Sapphire inquired, qualifying her last question, and the monster huffed in agreement. "You were sent to clean up after the corrupting light." Again, there was no objection to the statement.

The creature swiped through the last picture, seeming to anticipate another question, and another question did come, though the nature was much more serious than the last ones. "Can we poof you? We can keep you safe until we can better help you." The gem narrowed its eyes before remaking the symbol of the Diamond Authority, but this time adding an arrow that pointed to the group in front of it. The question was clear: "Are you with Homeworld?" Sapphire was silent a moment, then another, and another as the currents of time played through her head and still seemed to fail her the best option, so eventually she answered truthfully. "No, we are the Crystal Gems. We stand against all other gems should they threaten Earth or its people." The creature unexpectedly lashed its tail forward, making Sapphire flinch and the others begin to lunge forward to protect their friend, but equally as surprising as many of the events preceding this point was where the spikes on its tail were aimed. They came sharply down around its own gem, sinking into its flesh, and with a soft sound and a cloud of smoke, a cube shaped gem dropped to the ground.

The group stood in stunned silence for multiple minutes before Pearl recovered enough to scramble forward and bubble the gem, sending it off to the temple.


End file.
